


I will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet doth hang from them

by mikochan_noda



Series: Sasusaku Alter-Reality [2012-2015] [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alchemist Sakura with an Apothecary, Angst, Death, F/M, Fantasy, Hurt, Knight Sasuke, Pain, Prince Naruto, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24454306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikochan_noda/pseuds/mikochan_noda
Summary: A story where Sasuke is part of the commonfolk, Sakura a practicing healer, and Naruto the heir to the Kingdom. However, Sasuke’s family, who are the Kingdom’s head of the guards, wanted to have more political power and they want Sasuke to use his friendship with Naruto to achieve this.- requested bycheriper
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Team 7 - Relationship
Series: Sasusaku Alter-Reality [2012-2015] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766242
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	I will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet doth hang from them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheriper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheriper/gifts).



“No.”  
  
The word - fragrant of copper, laced with pain - came out of his mouth  
  
Not like this. _I will not let him die like this._  
  
He knew that his left fingers were broken, as phantom-fire raced through his arm. But he bent his trembling limbs, and pushed. It hurt to crawl to his knees, to finally find the strength to balance himself on all fours. But gods, he did manage to carry this blond idiot on his back. This _aren’t you supposed to be educated, by gods, this kingdom is going to the dogs_ prince who was actually the first friend he had ever made.  
  
And it was all his fault. _His_ fault.  
  
_You’re just like your brother._

His uncle had said when he screamed to stop.

_Stop._

His uncle who painstakingly raised him, when his parents died. Who he had believed in every word he had told him - the lies and the facts, of who he should befriend, on what he should do. His uncle had been there when Itachi abandoned him, as the world crumbled when he was twelve, and he relied on him to make the pain go away.

_Both of you_

A finger snapped.

_are sentimental,_

A knee cracked.

_gullible fools._

A body dropped.  
  
And his supposed House, that once gave him their highest regards, respected and even followed his words? They had left him for dead, with promise of more territories to conquer. Of more gold to gain. Of more power that their family could have ever dreamed.

 _Thank you, my nephew._ His Uncle said as he stood there, transfixed & unable to move as they murdered Naruto in front of him. _Thank you._  
  
Punctures on his arms seeped, the mass of gold & orange drowning in old blood with fresher red stains. Smoke smothered him as he and the dead-last -  
  
( _for a second,_ dead-weight _flashed through his mind. a corpse. he’s holding a corpse & he want to let his sick, dark humor to choke him to death as a sickening lurch heaved through his body, nearly vomiting blood and bile out his mouth_)  
  
\- trudged through the floor and dodged falling debris. Clanging blades, panicked shouts and thundering hooves reached his sharp ears. He’s already aware that the _coup d’ etat_ was already starting,   
  
( _a hunter. a warrior. a protector. a friend._

 _he excelled in all of this things & yet he failed._)  
  
There was two choices left in front of him:  
  
His loyalty to the kingdom: Run, ring the bells. Send a carrier. Warn. **Warn.** _Warn._ Return the prince.  
  
His retribution to the House: Abandon the Prince. Wring each & every neck who destroyed his family.

_(coward!_

_it was the last word sasuke heard from naruto, staring at him in accusation, before those blue eyes closed shut from a disfigured, swollen face_ )

Sasuke fled.

* * *

It flickered across the stream, the faint reflection of a glowing lantern from an open window.  
  
This little dwelling found in the middle of two fire trees, outside the city borders, had always roused Sasuke’s curiosity. Even he had been here for a couple of times, he often wondered on how its four pillars stood firm on the soil. Walls were haphazardly made of stone and plank, as it was composed of only a single room separated by mere shoots of bamboo and low-lying, long tables lined with knives, leaves and bottles. Its floor was half-done, with small roots emerging from its cracks and making itself comfortable as strangers tripped on it. The only sign that it was inhabited by quite an engaging individual was the hearth in the middle of the house, a bubbling pot that taught him to ask before tasting anything that came from it.  
  
He carefully sloshed his way towards the wide, shallow stream, trying not to jostle the injured body tied behind his back. His weary feet stumbled on some of the large outcrop of rocks that served as the bridge to that familiar house, but he kept on, as he could almost breathe in the herbs, bark, & spring. _Her._  
  
It was not widely known that the small, lithe girl that sold flowers in the Yamanaka’s stall was a talented healer, who dreamed to have her own apothecary. Yet because of her family who was indebted to the services of his family, she remained in taking lessons of compounding her concoctions, salves and tonics.  
  
Sakura still didn’t believe in her own capability to heal others, when he absolutely trusted his entire life in her hands. Sasuke knew that if she asked it of him, he would have helped her. Her connection to the royal family would even have her working in the castle herbal stocks.  
  
However, she was annoyingly noble - or just plain _stubborn_ , a thing that he hated about her - and persisted to make her ends meet & would rather take the hard way to get what she wanted.

The lantern, sunset-warm, greeted him, as he opened the waist-high gate with a nudge of his foot, its movement startling hanging chimes, wordlessly announcing his presence.  
  
A few feet away, her door - which the three of them had once carved in with vines, colored it in petal-made dyes - slid open.  
  
Suddenly, he was wrapped in a pair of small arms & a flurry sheet of pink. Sasuke had never even dared to initiate any lasting close contact between them before, but just this once, he relished on the swift blanket of warmth that slightly thawed the coldness that soaked him, before surrendering to unconsciousness.

* * *

That night, the _Leaf_ burned bright in flames, as it fell to the hands of the Uchiha House. 

However, on their glee to pillage a slumbering city, & overthrow the monarchy, they had not known that they had failed to clear the one thing that could ruin their conquest. 

The moment that Madara took the King’s heart in front of a victorious army - his son, the last remaining Uzumaki, fluttered back to life under a relieved healer’s hands.

* * *

“Is it too tight?”  
  
It was already noon, both of them sitting on a straw-made mat, with his back leaning on a pillow of feather downs. Her hair was tied up, wearing her green breeches, & a sleeveless tunic that he suspected that was made from his old training clothes. Fingers, small & thin, stained of coal & green, traced the seams of the rough, crisscrossing linen strips. Her quivering touch lingers for a second in each bump, where a needle pierced, a fist landed, a blade sliced - a mark that told him of his mistake.  
  
“How is he?” He replied instead, as he loathed the emotion that made her pale mouth tremble. He could see the bruises beneath her eyes, the weariness in her form. She’s been sleepless for nights, as he could see that her cot was still rolled & untouched ever since they arrived.  
  
“He’s going to be…" Dark eyes narrowed, as he dared her to finish the word with something along the words of _fine_ or _alright_. She seemed to sense this, as shy eyes flitted away. "Safe. Both of you have to stay here.”  
  
For a second, Sasuke entertained the idea of living in this odd homely place, where blooming daffodils still lived on green-bottle vases. Where everyday he would be surrounded by fragrance of chamomile, woken up by the calming rhythm of a wooden mortar against pestle. The loudest sounds to disturb him would either be the pounding of summer squalls or her full laughter when she traipsed along the sides of the brook.  
  
Ever since she became the Healer’s apprentice, Sakura had became a permanent fixture to him. She might have been seen by the prince first, befriended and adored. But Sasuke had always been around her the most, the one who recognized her skills. He was the one who knew Sakura best, even what Sakura didn’t know about herself.  
  
And what Sasuke cherished the most about her was this small open-secret between them.  
  
He knows that Sakura loves him.   
  
(a young girl of thirteen, helping him pluck herbs for his ailing mother. they were underneath the shadowed awning of birch copses, sleeping in its cool shades. her head cushioned on his arm, with white daisy feverfews surrounding them. _for her headache_ , she sleepily murmured as she clung to him, tugging on armbands that had shielded him from sunburns every time he trained in the archer’s range.  
  
he couldn’t sleep, not even with the comforting warmth and wind. not when his callused fingers were somehow caught in those carnation strands.  
  
then she whispered it as if she was in pain, a confession against his brow, drunk in a haze of dreams.)  
  
“He’ll stay for awhile.” The stitches told him that he was making another foolish decision after another. But he would not impose his presence on her. “Then we’ll move.”  
  
No, Sasuke would rather relive what happened to him last night than to watch what would his… _kin_ \- the word tasted like burning carcass on his mouth - do to her if they discovered she was keeping them here.  
  
“I’m not blind, Sasuke.” In a surprising show of steel, she placed her palms flat on the coarse woven mat, on the areas beside his hips. Her face leaned in, but her angry eyes flashed with her mouth set in a frown. “You are not going on a suicide mission and try to rain arrows on every man and woman you think worth destroying. Like in all the seven layers of hell would I let you go there.”  
  
He was astounded, but he was more…entranced on the way her mouth moved. The movements of her lips, the angry, heavy breathing caused by worry and fatigue, even the glimpse of skin from her pale mounds as it rose, seen within the dip of her thin tunic, nearly touching against his suddenly sensitive flesh. It made him dizzy - which was surely not from the dried poppy seeds that she had been shoving to his mouth ever since he woke up.  
  
He raised a hand, covered in the cooling salve and her personal towel that she ripped to strips when she ran out of clean bandages. Slowly settling it to the base of her neck, his fingers one by one furling to entangle themselves in her hair.  
  
“How -” Raising an eyebrow, he posed a challenge. “ - are you going to stop me?”  
  
A glare intensified, and he can feel her hands fisting, an urge to give him one of those mean punches that only a few faces had been lucky enough to survive. A chuckle was out of him, washing over the tops of her cheeks, and he knew how her brilliant mind and bleeding heart clashed when faced with her most persistent dilemma : _Him._  
  
Well, he’s going to help her answer his own question  
  
Sasuke leaned in. Sakura gasped, and scrambled to her knees away from him.

At first he thought that she was horrified at the idea, but it suddenly registered to his mind and the world suddenly became loud to his ears.  
  
“Naruto.” She breathed heavily. “He’s screaming.”  
  
Without any warning, a tanned arm waved till it found purchase on the nearby low table. The cups, & papers that contained most of their cures were swept to the floor, as the prince woke up from a nightmare, bloodshot eyes livid, screaming vengeance on Sasuke.

“Hush.” That bed-side voice was what Sakura used whenever she handled some of her terrified, or angry patients. But the nervous tremble of her lips, the way her eyes darted frantically to the horribly wounded young man told Sasuke that she was still scared.

“Calm down, please.” But when his hand landed to one of the thin blade she used for dissections, Sakura called his name to soothe him. “Naruto. It’s okay, Naruto.”  
  
“Get him out of _here!_ ” Naruto screamed, gripping tight on the blade, that they saw the strain it did to his hand wounds, staining the clean gauze. The face still painted in green bruises was contorted in hatred - and it was enough for Sasuke to abandon any semblance of revenge he had when he saw how it ate any semblance of sanity on Naruto. “ _Get him out!_ ”  
  
It almost sickened Sasuke to see how much the betrayal ( _it’s his fault. sasuke should have known better. he should have._ ) made his friend delirious in anger, as he could see how the wrapped legs shook, unable to find any semblance of balance to stand up or even move away from his perch.  
  
“Naruto, no! Sasuke didn’t -”  
  
“I saw him standing there! _There!_ Looking at me as they stabbed me. As they told me that they would _kill_ -” He stop to gasped, almost unable to speak when tears came unbidden.

“- Dad…”

Naruto’s stunned, as if he just realized that the room was already filled with sunlight.

 _“…Mom._ ”  
  
It all flooded back to him - those dark, sadistic promises his House made on Naruto’s almost-dead body. Promises that the three of them knew have already been fulfilled. And Sasuke stood by watching in the middle of that chaos, where in that night he was too scared to face them until boisterous laughter cackled, & fifty fists finally cracked the prince’s skull.  
  
“They already did it, didn’t they, _bastard_?” His usually sunny voice, full of raucous cheer and life, was filled with anguish and loathing. It turned Naruto into this loathsome monster as the nearby glasses rattled, as if attuned to his rage. He commanded, showing them a frightening glimpse of the powerful king beneath the lackadaisical facade. “ _Tell me!_ ”  
  
Three days already passed since the revolution succeeded, as Sakura discretely returned each day to the dilapidated town market to purchase some necessary bread and bandages. Each and every head of the Uzumaki house was proudly displayed in the middle of the noxious, deserted plaza.  
  
“Yes.” Sakura answered instead, as she - instinctively, in her need for comfort - turned her head and shuddered a breath to Sasuke’s right shoulder, who merely stood rigid, still silent. “But Naruto - Sasuke couldn’t have done that to you. Can’t you see?” Nights of constant guarding, healing and just worrying finally made her patience snap when her usual firm voice cracked, trying to hide the tears she shed, as they disappeared to the sleeves of his tunic. “He brought you here. He didn’t kill you. Sasuke’s here, _Your Highness_.”  
  
Naruto. Naruto, oh gods, why break this optimistic _fucking_ blonde, the only man he believed that no shadows could ever touch? He nearly wanted to go back in time, just to save him the pain and never befriend him again if he would be the cause of his ruin.   
  
“No! It’s your fault!” He emphasized when he threw the blade, a thin slice grazing on Sasuke’s left cheek as it went past him and stuck on the wooden post behind him.“ _Your fault!_ ”  
  
“Naruto." His blue eyes narrowed, but his hand was lowering, traces of sanity falling back to his manic thoughts as face slowly relaxed and breathing stopped in quick huffs."You told me once…You can’t bring back my family back. Or Itachi. I can’t bring yours back either.”  
  
“But I’ll return to you the throne. Through any means possible.”  
  
The three knew what Sasuke meant. Before Itachi had left the House, he made Sasuke vow to never join - in any circumstances - the royal cavalry or knighthood, in order to have someone in the main family to continue the bloodline in the incident that the heir dies. It was a well-kept truth by his mother, brother and the two people who had cared about him outside his family: Sasuke’s prodigious military intelligence and unprecedented skills in weaponry.  
  
He could be the King’s personal assassin, his shadow. If he so chooses.  
  
“ _No matter what it takes._ ”

Dreams of living a normal life, of being a mere trading huntsman, who comes home to scents of homemade cooking, with a wife bearing a swaddled child to give him a welcoming peck on his cheek. These images froze, and shattered like ice before his eyes as he brought one bent knee to the floor, with his head low, & nape exposed. 

“I swear it to you, my king.”  
  
To their surprise, Sakura joined Sasuke in his genuflection, her head bowed low as well, and a fisted right hand on her chest as well.  
  
“As do I.” She spoke, as the remaining Haruno - servants of the main Uchiha House for centuries. It meant that whatever Naruto decreed, she would also take it as Sasuke’s word as well. Never did he, nor his family ever take advantage of this authority, as they knew full well that Sakura was her own person. But Sasuke had the strongest urge to use it and make her stay behind.

He thinned his lips in silence and raised his eyes to meet with hardened blue ones.  
  
Relief flooded Sasuke when Naruto gave a jerk of his head, a flash of understanding and agreement.  
  
Murder attempts, assassinations, & grievances, there was no mistaking to the bond that existed between them.  
  
Naruto knew him very well. He knew what Sasuke said in that single glance.  
  


* * *

  
Sasuke never believed in the existence of gods.

Nobody knew this. No one. Not even his family. Maybe Itachi knew it, genius as he was, but he never spoke of the matter to his brother, as he was often away, widening the distance between them. He endured ceremonies, and traditions for the sake of avoiding the punishment for outright blasphemy: decapitation. But his mind never caved in to the demeaning sermons, or capitulated to give an excess tithe to the temples.

If there were divine interventions, then everything wouldn’t have ended this way.

This is why, for the first time, Sasuke worshipped the only Faith he had.

And his first prayer was: _Thank you._

He had always thought about this - for nights, and every waking moment - this little sacrilege. Of stealing a kiss, lips brushing softly against her damp forehead. He tasted sweat, and honey. He breathed in night blooms. She glowed like moonlight. He shadowed her like the clouds, as he could not seem to pull away from her. His rough hands - wrapped in leather, & coated in oil - hovered over her cheekbones, as if another touch would wake her up & he would not be able to protect her any more.  
  
Sakura slept, like those enchanted slumbering princesses he had heard of, but with her gloved hand tips on the strings of her knapsack. As if she was prepared to leave at the moments notice. She believed they would leave before the break of dawn. Naruto & Sasuke though, would leave the instant her breath evened to that common respiratory pattern of a healer’s rejuvenation phase.  
  
A silly, little girl that always followed him around, but that ridiculousness, this strength, this…. _This._  
  
He clasped the small pendant that he had painstakingly carved for her when he was fifteen years old, a gift that he had always wanted to give her if the time came to ask for her hand. Once Itachi took his place as the head of the House, and left him free of his duties as an Uchiha. Where he would be allowed to have her, without any protests from anyone. Sakura was the only forbidden thing that he had ever wanted.   
  
This is why he would leave. He would leave her, not because for Naruto’s sake.

It’s for her.  
  
“I…” The whisper was subdued, a tone that his companion never spoke in. His friend. His king. “I’ve always known about it. ”  
  
Normally, when the subject of Sakura was brought up privately between them, it would always end up with Naruto teasing him about it, and making failed attempts to leave Sasuke alone with Sakura in the most embarrassing moments. The idiot would make whip sounds. The moron would sing those ridiculous childhood songs about flowers & first loves. He thought that Naruto only knew that Sakura loved him.  
  
But for Naruto to know that Sakura’s love was not unrequited…  
  
“Earlier, you swore…You swore on her life.”  
  
The blond stood tall, strapping the wide broadsword to his back as he turned.  
  
“I’ll believe your word.”  
  


* * *

  
They had managed to escape through the small gathering of trees that hid the secret mountain pass. Sasuke often wandered around the woods, so he knew every path and passage that derailed the palace security (which Naruto already had some knowledge of). But they deemed it unsafe to venture farther to the tunnels with such little source of light, & still recuperating from injuries. They opted to cover a huge distance first for two hours, before settling on the highest point of a canyon, deeming it a safe place to wait for daylight.  
  
Sasuke took the first shift to let Naruto rest.  
  
But he woke up suddenly - as if in a pull - and sat swiftly. His senses told him that there was danger, but the only thing he could see was the violet starless sky, the slim line of pre-dawn light, a visible white line of smoke stark against the clear horizon, his sentinel staring at the blaze beneath…  
  
There was a bright flash, the situation slowly registering to his mind. He saw that Sasuke was not being his indifferent self, there was something resigned..no, defeated in him as he heard indistinguishable words being muttered, the leather hand-guards creaking as it clenched and relaxed on his knees, as if wanting to run. Run and leave him _and…._  
  
The consuming forest fire below.  
  
And from the way it spread, it came from the direction of -  
  
_Sakura._  
  
“Sasuke!”  
  
_Sakura._  
  
And Sasuke sat there. Like last night. He watched another one die before his eyes. Cold. Unfeeling. As if he didn’t care.  
  
Hotter than any star and sun that ever existed, Naruto stood up, cocked a tight fist and punched that pasty, unmoving face to wake that insane man to his senses. It gave a satisfying crick and his face whipped to the side, busting a lip open. However, a sole dark eye - almost bleeding red as it reflected the flames below - remained fixated to the burning ground beneath their feet.  
  
“What the FUCK are we still doing here?! We can go back! COME ON.”  
  
Then Naruto’s sight burst in spots, when Sasuke’s fist met the bridge of his nose.  
  
“I told you.” He growled, dangerous. “ _No matter what it takes_ , Naruto.”  
  
Teeth gritted in anguish, unashamedly letting a drop, two, another one - until they could not stop making clean trails on his dust-covered face.  
  
“It’s been burning for hours.”  
  
That meant when they were clambering up through the slopes…  
  
Sasuke had been the one watching their back the entire time. He would have seen the roar of fire. He would have seen the amount of smoke that rose up behind. And Sasuke would let Naruto continue to move on, because he swore on Sakura’s life. Sasuke made an oath that he would make sure Naruto would regain his throne. Even if that meant Sakura burning to death in the hands of those damned Uchiha, in order to avoid his capture.  
  
This was Sasuke’s price to pay, to prove his loyalty, in exchange for Naruto’s loss.  
  


* * *

  
  
A year later, His Royal Highness, Uzumaki Naruto won on his campaign against the Uchiha upheaval. From then on, its treacherous bloodline was already extinct.  
  
The silent, mysterious general behind his victory disappeared the moment he burned an impaled Madara on a stake in the middle of the Town Plaza.  
  


* * *

  
  
A young man returned to an abandoned area found near the borders of the Leaf.   
  
No one came to this part of the forest, as the whole area was ought and trespassing equaled to hanging.  
  
It took a year before he returned to this place, already littered with red poppies blooming on the ashen soil. The small brook, where he had once caught some fish in exchange for her aloe ointments, was completely dry to the bone. The red trees that she loved to dance under were only stumps, and the garden she doted on was completely razed.  
  
He’s standing on the same spot where he dared her to stop him.  
  
A detritus of blackened logs, shattered glasses and bent metals were in front of him. In some twisted compulsion, he wanted to search for her remains, but ( _coward_!) he never had the courage to come back, as he had to make sure he was freed from his vow before returning home. _This was his home._  
  
No. Not any longer.  
  
He lingered on the spot where her door should have been. Where that beautiful red lantern should flicker in welcome.  
  
Then something caught his attention, a dull rounded glimmering thing that reflected off the sun. Lowering himself, he picked the little thing stuck in between the fallen coal-black pillar.  
  
_His gift._  
  
And as if in instinct, he brought the pendant to his lips.  
  
It felt cold.  
  


* * *

  
  
_What was the use of pounding the door if they had intended to lock everything up the minute those idiotic boys left her alone?_

_Useless._  
  
_The woman leaned on the frame, the jeers and snide from outside telling her that she would rather die here in dignity than to surrender herself and used as leverage against Naruto._  
  
_Sakura took the red-silver gift into her hands, stared at it while smiling and crying at the same time, as the fire blazed, greedily consuming everything. Like the burn of his mouth against her brow, as he hesitated over her mouth, as if to contemplate that stolen kisses were not worth it, if she was asleep._

_“You’re so stupid sometimes.”_

_The pendant was refreshingly cool against her lips._

* * *

[](http://lilmikomiko.tumblr.com/)  
_i will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet doth hang_  
\- act 5, scene 3, from romeo & juliet (w. shakespeare)

**Author's Note:**

> this was posted on **sasusaku-alterreality** last September 16, 2012 [[link](https://sasusakualter-reality.tumblr.com/post/31658310888/04-i-will-kiss-thy-lips-haply-some-poison-yet)]


End file.
